THE GOLDEN DOOR.--The main portal of the Transportation Building, because of its strikingly attractive features both of design and coloring, became known as "The Golden Door," and certainly deserved the admiring title given it by the public. The Transportation Building, as a whole, was a complete departure in style and hue from the great mass of structures which gave the White City its name, and its greatest entrance was its most novel and beautiful part. It was, beyond question, the chief illustration at the World's Fair of what can be done in architecture by combining exquisite reliefs with oriental richness of painting, though in the decoration of entrances architects and artists had lavished all their genius and invention. The doorway is an arch, or, more properly speaking, a quintuple arch, the five blending into a whole elaborately ornamented and embellished with delicate bas-reliefs. The combined arches form a semi-circular environment for a symbolical mural painting in the background and just above the entrance proper. The impression is thus produced of a picture gorgeously framed, and this effect is further enhanced by a square, treated in a similar manner to the arches, and joining the peripheries of the exterior one. This remarkable portal was painted a pea-green and the bas-relief was overlaid with silver leaf, the result being something dazzling in the extreme. Not merely because of its richness and originality, but because of the lesson it taught by comparison with less florid though grander styles the Golden Doorway was certainly among the most notable architectural features shown. [Illustration: CHICAGO DAY AT THE EXPOSITION, OCTOBER 9, 1893.] On the night of October 9, 1871, the City of Chicago was destroyed by fire, the devastation being so great as to excite the sympathy of the whole civilized world. Where had been a flourishing city was but a great expanse of smoking ruins. So complete was the destruction that the task of rebuilding seemed an impossible one. It was the greatest fire in history. October 9, 1893, was "Chicago Day" at the World's Columbian Exposition, the day selected to do honor to the city in which the great Fair was held. The view above given, showing a part of the throng in the Court of Honor, tells a portion of the story. More than seven hundred and fifty-one thousand people assembled on the grounds! It was the greatest gathering in history. [Illustration: ON THE WOODED ISLAND.]